Putting Romance back in Relationship

This is the third item on Tom Corson-Knowles list, The 15 Success Habits of Highly Paid Authors and Writers. “Successful Authors Self-Promote.” I’m not sure if I agree with this entirely… but he’s more of an expert than I am. He writes that it takes a dedicated fan base and a lot of hard, self-promotion to make or break it in the Ebook market today. He says you need to promote yourself every day, every where – Facebook, social media, waiting in line at the grocery store – sell yourself.

While it is probably good marketing advice, it is lousy for making and keeping friends. Everything I’ve read about marketing on social media says this is NOT the way to do it! I’ve read that you should provide 95% useful information, and only self-promote 5% of the time. People who are always posting “buy my book, buy my book” are considered a public nuisance, and folks start unfriending them and ignoring them.

I’d say, take Tom’s third suggestion with a grain of salt. Promote yourself whenever it is appropriate to do so – and to people who might be interested. I’m not going to promote an erotic romance to a Christian Bible Study group! Know your target audience… and promote yourself to them. But know how to be a good friend, first. People will buy your book if they trust you. So first, you must earn their trust.

If you ever get someone looking at you like the girl in this photo, it’s probably time to talk about something else! Never bore your listeners – always leave them wanting more. You want them to run out and buy your book – not burn your business card as soon as they can make a clean get-away.

But the suggestion is still valid. Just because you wrote a book and posted it to Amazon doesn’t mean you are finished. Now it’s time to market your book, and to begin work on your next one.